Uncategorized
-
Girls Gone Wild
I’ve been trying to get to work this morning. The key word is “trying.” I have been up since 5:30 a.m., doing laundry, making school lunches, getting a healthy-on-the-go breakfast ready for the girls, doing my nails and all the other myriad things moms have to do. I have makeup on one eye, hair gel on my fingers and am trying to do a last few things before running out the door to get to work early. My youngest throws her backpack over her shoulder and is heading through the living room toward the front door, toaster waffles in hand, when the little maple syrup cup spills on the carpet. Instead…
-
The Longest Night
I love Christmas. I love the smell of pine needles, cinnamon, cookies baking. I love bright lights on Christmas trees. Candles. Some Christmas music (some I hate, but that’s because it’s terrible music, not because it’s Christmas). We’re in that strange in-between era now when the kids are adults, but none has yet married. There are no grandbabies. So there’s no Santa. No cookies and a carrot left out. We still do stockings, but we also play Cards Against Humanities later in the day, and believe me, that is a game that will put you on the naughty list immediately. Sometimes we do Santa gifts (unwrapped) and sometimes not. It…
- appreciation, book biz, Books, indie pub, Portland, The Doris Diaries, Tongues of Angels, Uncategorized, Veronika Layne, work, writing
On the Road: How 10 of My Readings Went Wrong
Ever feel like a schmuck? I have the cure. In no particular order, here are some exciting or dreary adventures that happened to me whilst on the road or giving local readings. Feel better about yourself immediately upon reading! The bookstore owner giving the reading got my name wrong, my genre wrong, and said the novel (Tongues of Angels) was self-published when it small-press-pubbed. I may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Read more about this memorable event here.) The Portland bar that was supposed to premiere the Rebel Girl cocktail for the Doris Diaries debut forgot and did not buy any of the ingredients. Disappointing,…
You May Also Like
What I’ve learned: Publishing and the march of times
- Appearances, book biz, Books, Catching Up, freelance, NaNoWriMo, novel, Uncategorized, Veronika Layne
Weekend Wonders…
Saturday is the first day of NaNoWriMo and I am raring to go. So ready to start writing book #2 of the Veronika Layne series that I keep spacing out of conversations and falling into my story. I was up on a ridge, hiking, in my mind today, and suddenly there was a love scene happening, and then I realized my husband was talking to me and I had to snap out of it. I wasn’t fantasizing — I was writing. In my mind. Just like that. NaNoWriMo is a 30-day bootcamp to write a novel. I wrote one last year and it was one of the best experiences —…
-
What Would Jane Do? A Literary Pilgrimage
What Would Jane Do? A Literary Pilgrimage By Julia Park I’ve been to England twice before, and to the beautiful Georgian city of Bath in particular, because as a Jane Austen aficionado, a Janeite, if you will, that’s what we do. We follow in her footsteps, we look for the Jane connection, and we read each of her six novels (and the juvenilia, the marginalia, and the letters) as if they were travelogues. Some of them are travelogues of a sort. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, Elizabeth Bennett and her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner plan a tour of the Lakes District, in part to forget about certain young men.…
